Case Study: Tree Planting
Seismic lines for geophysical exploration near Fort Nelson, BC.
Approximately 60,000 black spruce seedlings planted each year for ecosystem restoration.
Worked with Fort Nelson First Nation to treat 30,000 seedlings in 2022.
Isolated and lab tested local microbes to promote plant growth in winter before application.
Microbes were made easy to use in the field by consulting with client on application methods.
Very remote sites, helicopter access only.
Subset of trees were marked ahead of time for measurement and destructive sampling in 2023.
Tree Planting Results
Additional data processing in ongoing and will entail multivariate statistical analysis for the full set of results. However, early results are visually and statistically promising.
The effects of the microbes are dependent on the site where they were applied. On low-stress sites the effects are less pronounced, while on high-stress sites the effect is great.
On difficult sites, up to 20% more biomass was observed in tree saplings treated with local symbiotic microbes.
Based on visual results alone, the First Nation client has committed to a full-scale (65,000 trees) application in Fall 2023.